Creating Road Markings

I would like to be able to draw road markings, or parking lot lines, in my design. How can I do that?

ANSWER

Creating road markings is easy using the Terrain Feature tool so long as you have a Terrain Perimeter present in your design.

To create road markings

First, launch your Home Designer software and Open the plan in which you would like to add your road markings.

In your plan, if you have not already created a Terrain Perimeter, you need to add one to Floor 1 by selecting Terrain> Create Terrain Perimeter.

Also, if you have not already done so, you will can place a road in your plan using the Terrain> Roads and Sidewalks> Straight Roadtool.

After you have a road placed in your plan, select the Terrain> Feature> Rectangular Feature tool, then click and drag a rectangular terrain feature out in to your plan.

Once created, select the terrain feature using the Select Objects tool and choose Open Object to display the Terrain Feature Specification dialog.

Increase the Height to 1" so that you will be able to see the feature when placed on a Road surface.

Go to the Materials panel, and locate a material in the Select Library Object dialog that you want for your road marking.

Click OK when you have finished making these changes to apply them and return to your 2D floor plan view.

Next, select the Terrain Feature and use its edit handles to resize it.

You can use the Break Line and Change Line/Arc edit tools to change the shape of the terrain feature to create objects such as direction arrows.

To use the Break Line edit tool, select the Terrain Feature that you want to place a joint type of break in, and single click on the item to add the break.

To use the Change Line/Arc edit tool, first select the straight side of the Terrain Feature that you want to turn in to a curve, and then click on the tool. This tool can also be used to turn a curved segment into a straight line.

You can also overlap Terrain Features and apply a different material to them as we did for the tires on our bicycle path road marker. The interior circle is a terrain feature assigned an asphalt material that matches that of the road on which we placed the marker.

Finally, if you want to create copies of this terrain feature, use the Select Objects tool to drag a marquee around all of the terrain features and click on the Copy edit tool.

Then simply click in the plan to paste the copy, which can then be moved and edit independently.

Using the Copy and Paste functions can help to save time when you need to create multiple road or parking lot features that will be the same.

In the image at the beginning of this article, we used the Copy edit tool, and then clicked on the Sticky Mode edit tool to place the multiple road marking bars that made up our crosswalk.

Also, after creating the first bicycle path road marking, we copied it to the other side of the street, and rotated it. Copying saved time and ensured that both of these terrain features were exactly the same.

Finally, take a 3D Full Camera view to see the results and make any necessary adjustments.

You can use this same procedure to create various road surface markings, basketball court lines, parking lot lines, handicapped parking space markers, etc.

Use the Blend Color with Materials tool to create an asphalt surface that has a different color, but maintains the asphalt texture, such as in the below image of a wheelchair accessible parking place.